Friday, March 15, 2013

NEW YORK -- Observations from Charlotte's 72-55 loss against Saint Louis in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament Friday:

-- For the 49ers, it’s the National Invitational Tournament or nothing.

At 21-11, Charlotte doesn’t have a resume strong enough to warrant consideration for an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament.

There are three other postseason tournaments nowadays in men’s basketball – the NIT, the College Basketball Invitational and Collegeinsider.com Tournament. But 49ers athletics director Judy Rose said the 49ers would only play in the NIT, if invited.

Rose said she told men’s coach Alan Major and women’s coach Cara Consuegra when they were hired that that the only postseason tournaments the 49ers will play in are the NCAA and the men’s and women’s NITs.

The 49ers women (24-5), upset by Temple in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament last week, are hopeful of receiving an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. Charlotte’s women have made the postseason 10 consecutive seasons, eight times in the WNIT.

-- After making 12-of-15 free throws in a first-round victory against Richmond (including eight of 11 in the final five seconds), Charlotte’s Pierria Henry was just one of three against Saint Louis. Charlotte made eight of nine in the first half, then slumped to four of 13 in the second half.-- The 49ers outrebounded Saint Louis 39-34, but had just 10 offensive rebounds and were outscored 28-24 in the paint by the Billikens.

-- Richmond coach Chris Mooney, who had two technical fouls and was ejected from Thursday’s loss against Charlotte, won’t face disciplinary action from the Atlantic 10, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

-- It was a tough tournament for 49ers guards not named Henry. Sophomore E. Victor Nickerson was a combined one-of-10 from the field, sophomore Terrence Williams four-of-17 and freshman Denzel Ingram one-of-10.

Please please please get some players that can actually shoot the ball. I know D is tougher to find but you can't defend the 3 all the time and once you get down by double digits you are sunk without some scorers

Observations on the A-10 tourney. Charlotte clearly lost and then given the first round game by the refs. Second round game gets beat down by St. Louis. This team and its coach continues to be a well deserved JOKE.

Tom Sorensen was either drunk or smoking crack waiting until the last day to predict a UNCC 49er win over a 16th ranked 24-6 team and then a few hours later have to look like some ignorant incompetent fool.Moral to story: Dont do drugs drink and drive or write fantasy predictions on your company laptop. In Sorensens defense in spite of being an ignorant foolish dull obtuse dense fatuous idiot goof booby dolt imbecile he is no worse than his peers espec who write about the local semi-pro football team.

Sad. We used to be worried about where we would play and who we would play in the NCAA Tourney. Now, we're excited because Major minored in replacing Lutz and drove us so low we think the NIT is a reward.

And, what has Major done? 10 wins, 13 wins. 21 wins and an NIT. So, that's progress? If it is, that is sad. It is by wins, but not by interest. We are very sad and no one cares but those few hundred who buy season tickets.

Nobody cares because Major cant coach and this team is nowhere near as good as the team he inherited from Bobby Lutz. Major played 13 OOC cupcakes to get to 21 wins. This record was scripted not earned. 21 wins with 16 coming over scrubs get you nothing.Not even fan support from your own city or media outlets.Halton is half empty. Major has reduced this program to the equivalent of a 20 win MEAC team. This team got blown out in the 2nd half of the season more than any Charlotte team I can remember.Good teams, average teams do not lose 4 straight 17-20pt games at anytime in the season, bad teams do. Much less when your suppose to be getting better. Not only blown out by good teams but blown out by bad teams too. That shows no growth. This team was given a tournament win which earned no respect from anyone other than the 15 delirious fans on NNN. Why do you think we beat SJU and they still were given a higher seed than Charlotte in the lowly NIT. No team wants to play in the NIT. Its a losers tournament and Major certainly fits the bill.